In a significant move, the ongoing stand-off between the security agencies and Blackberry is likely to be resolved soon as highly-placed government sources revealed that Blackberry has indicated its willingness to provide access to security and intelligence agencies to its encrypted services, particularly the email and SMSes.
The telecom giant, sources added, has agreed in principal, particularly in wake of the security concerns raised by the government, that it will soon inform the concerned agencies about the solution, which may even include setting up a server in Mumbai, to monitor the data.
The move will come as a shot in the arm for the country’s security establishment. With terror outfits relying heavily on the use of technology intelligence, agencies are also gearing up capacity to meet the challenge and bringing Blackberry on board is part of the same initiative.
The government had earlier even threatened to block Blackberry services in India following its refusal to provide access to the encrypted information bring used on its platform.
“I think that Research In Motion, the company that runs Blackberry, realises that concerns raised by Indian security establishment are genuine and need to be addressed. We hope to work in close co-ordination to ensure that the services provided by it can be monitored by security and intelligence agencies. Blackberry has addressed these issues in other countries and they will do the same in India as well,’’ a senior government official said.
Since Blackberry server is based in Canada where the encryption level is very high, it is extremely difficult to crack by any agency. So none of the emails and SMSes being used on the Blackberry network can be accesses by intelligence agencies in India.
The National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) had been assigned the task of examining the whole issue.